Chapter Text
#1-Comfort
He squeezes her hand on impulse; except it’s not an impulse anymore, not really.
#2-Kiss
Their first kiss was rash and impetuous, not to mention bloody- still, Finn thought even then that her lips were better than any wine or any sweet thing on earth.
#3-Soft
It would take Rae years to stop hating her flesh and skin; Finn loved the softness of her bare back, her lips and hair and eyes.
#4-Pain
The years seemed to happily meander away of their own accord, and still Finn recalled with stark clarity the agony that had seized him one evening in his seventeenth year, when the girl he loved more than anything had flung a leather jacket at him and turned her back to him.
#5-Potatoes
Finn was shit at cooking, Rae would discover one afternoon when the baked potatoes he had proudly presented her had caved in on themselves before his disbelieving eyes.
#6-Rain
It rained in London quite a bit; Rae was shivering as she entered her tiny flat and her boyfriend greeted her with a smile, a towel and a cup of tea.
#7-Chocolate
His eyes reminded Rae of the creamy truffles she use to devour as a child during Christmas, years before she hid in shame while eating the same ones.
#8-Happiness
Children who had known abandonment also grew up to appreciate the good people in life.
#9-Telephone
This was it, the one thing she would never tell him: Rae would wait until he was sound asleep, his chest rising and falling with a steady rhythm- then she would lean over and whisper over and over how much she loved him; only once so far he’d kissed her the following morning and told her that he had heard her voice in his dreams.
#10-Ears
She didn’t know his back could arch the way it had until her curious tongue flicked a certain spot.
#11-Name
His name, Finn, sounded to him like the word “frog”, something boring and toady- this was before he heard what it sounded like spilling from her lips while she writhed in his bed.
#12-Sensual
It was better than any dog-eared romance novel she had read as a teen, and his skimming hands and skillful tongue made her forget those trashy books.
#13-Death
It was something Rae thought about quite a bit, and even while he gamely discussed it with her, Finn could never shake his uneasiness at Rae’s fascination with the topic.
#14-Sex
He discovered early on that Rae’s saucy mouth extended to every other sphere of their lives- “Pound me to dust”, she said, her eyes intense, and Finn forgot how to breathe.
#15-Touch
He was gentle as his finger tentatively stroked the faded scars on her legs, his smile tremulous.
#16-Weakness
Finn noticed it only days after meeting this loud, brash girl; she smiled impishly at him and first his throat went dry, then his hands trembled slightly- it was enough to ruin his mood because she was Archie’s girl back in those days.
#17-Tears
He balled the leather jacket into his fists as he slid onto the floor of his room.
#18-Speed
There was nothing quite like driving his scooter down a winding road, watching the world dart by in an array of colors.
#19-Wind
When he was helping her move into their London flat he found a short poem she had penned years before, about how much she wished for a better tomorrow and for her to fly, fly away; he kept it tucked into his wallet for many years.
#20-Freedom
Rae explained sheepishly about loving to write because it transported her someplace else; Finn understood more than she realized- he had his music.
#21-Life
They munched on toast and sipped on tea while they bantered about whether they should get a cat or a dog for their one bedroom flat that leaked when it rained.
#22-Jealousy
“It comes with the package when your boyfriend is fit,” her friend said with a shrug;oh, shut up, Chloe, Rae thought darkly.
#23-Hands
When her baby brother had been born when she was almost 17, Rae had kissed his tiny limbs and cried alongside her mum.
#24-Taste
She thought he was honeysuckle, he thought she was marzipan; neither of them would admit it to the other.
#25-Devotion
There would always be naysayers; it was a long process but Rae would come to understand that some people envied what she and Finn had.
#26-Forever
The word had taken on newer meanings as they grew older.
#27-Blood
She would awaken from the throes of an old nightmare that was also part memory with a gasp- she would look around her, confused, until Finn’s lips would ghost across her neck in steadying comfort.
#28-Sickness
“You’re actin’ mental!” he shouted so thoughtlessly that one day as they fought over something stupid; when her eyes welled with tears Finn felt the burning, churning in his belly.
#29-Melody
Rae didn’t know Finn could carry a tune, until she heard him trying to ease their newborn son to sleep.
#30-Star
He tattooed it on his ribs, right above her name; when she demanded to know why he had done something that dumb and probably painful, Finn smiled and said it was worth it to know she was part of him permanently.
#31-Home
Rae rubbed his hands to warm them while on holiday with the gang; his gaze was burning and intimate.
#32-Confusion
“I don’t believe ya,” and yet Finn was confident that she would be his.
#33-Fear
Linda never spoke of it openly, the horrifying, sinking realization that had hit her as soon as she had come home; the house had been too still, and Linda was a mother after all.
#34-Lightning/Thunder
As kids Chloe and she would huddle under a duvet during storms; Chloe burrowed her head into Rae’s shoulder but Rae found the flashes and booms dangerous and exhilarating.
#35-Bonds
Finn felt Rae was safest with Kester Gil- after himself of course- and he encouraged her to nurture her relationship with her old therapist as well as Karim.
#36-Technology
For his 25th birthday, she presented him with the newest, coolest thing in music- it was called an iPod, and while Finn grinned and thanked her, Rae knew he preferred their records more when the iPod began to collect dust.
#37-Market
Karim kissed her mum with such loving enthusiasm as he brought home the groceries for the week; the truth was that Rae learned quite a bit from watching them through the years.
#38-Gift
After watching his wife struggle finding a place in the busy London job market, and then seeing how halfhearted she was about it, Finn abruptly changed his career plans and told Rae to quit her job and focus on her writing.
#39-Smile
Rae thought Chloe had the loveliest smile to ever grace any woman.
#40-Innocence
He met her during a carefree time, during the golden days of summer of their youth- he could not recall a moment when the young girl had not intrigued him.
#41-Completion
One Christmas they somehow convinced everyone to come up to London to be with them for a change- the gang, their families and even Kester and his wife; Rae had cooked in a hurry (bad idea) the power blinked out and they had finished their evening huddled by candlelight.
#42-Sky
He watched a flock of birds stream across the sky and marveled at their flight and freedom; if he was reincarnated as a bird he hoped he could somehow find his way to her in some other life.
#43-Clouds
When she had been a child, Rae had liked to make up shapes in the clouds; she was startled when Finn pointed up to the sky and remarked that it looked like a lion wearing a crown.
#44-Heaven
He was a simple lad, give him a warm bed with his girl and a life full of sex and music.
#45-Hell
Finn sat in the bloody Swan in his dad’s borrowed suit, Rae wasn’t even there and he felt more hopeless and miserable than he could recall feeling since his mum left.
#46-Sun
“But what will happen once the sun expands like the bloke said on that science channel?” Rae asked with wide eyes during breakfast; Finn shrugged, “We’ll get an extra crispy tan?” and then hid a smirk as she huffed and rolled her eyes.
#47-Moon
When she was around 3 or 4, she thought the moon followed her everywhere she went; of course she blurted that out to him one day while disgustingly drunk.
#48-Waves
Their daughter inherited Rae’s shiny dark hair that looked like an undulating river.
#49-Hair
They weren’t church goers by any means; on lazy Sundays she would do her crossword puzzles on her comfy green armchair by the window, and he studied her rich brown sunlit hair with the same intensity.
#50-Supernova
Their first time together, fireworks exploded behind Rae’s closed eyelids.